January 20, 2024

Htmx - Back to the Server Side

Warning: This post may contain opinions. I’ve recently got interested in some of the new developments in web development, and in particular, the htmx library. This is a library that allows you to add dynamic behaviour to your web pages, without having to write any Javascript. It feels to the spirit of the web I knew and loved back in the 90s, which was all about hypermedia, and the ability to link between documents.

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December 27, 2023

V2H Part2 - Learning to Use It

Teething Issues We’ve had our V2H charger a while now, but had a couple of teething problems around a software issue that have made it somewhat hard to figure out the best way to use it. We are one of the limited number of customers who have been given an export limit by the DNO (Distribution Network Operator) telling us how much electricity we are allowed to export to the grid at any time.

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December 27, 2023

Octopus Tariff Comparisons

Octopus Tariff Comparisons Changing Tariff At some point in November, we were experiencing consistently higher prices on Octopus Agile, and I decided to switch tariffs for the rest of the winter at least. Octopus have an “Intelligent Octopus” tariff that charges 7.5p kWh between 11:30pm and 6:00am each day, and around 30p kWh the rest of the time. This tariff is not supported by our V2H charger yet - they specifically say it’s not supported.

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October 19, 2023

Our Vehicle to Home (V2H) Experience - Part 1

Today a nice engineer from ChargedEV called Steve fitted us a V2H charger. This is part of the world’s largest trial of Vehicle-to-Home bidirectional chargers being performed by Indra in the UK. What’s a V2H Charger? A conventional EV charger is one way - it takes the electrons from the grid and puts them into your car. A bidirectional charger on the other hand, not only lets you push electrons into your car, but also to pull them out again.

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September 22, 2021

Software Doesn't Solve Social Problems

I listened to the audio book copy of “The Courage To Be Disliked” last year. It’s written as a discussion between a philosopher and a young man, about the concepts of Adlerian psychology, and there’s a great deal of real wisdom there. One of the key points, is that Adler considered all problems we face as humans, to be issues of interpersonal relationships. The more this is argued in the book, the more it becomes obvious that this is true.

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December 4, 2020

Cory Doctorow And Eco-Consumerism

I really enjoyed this fully-charged podcast and will be reading some Cory Doctorow. I especially liked the Bruce Sterling quote about the “grandfather problem”. This is the idea that if you can do something less well than your dead grandfather, then it’s probably not the eco-friendly behaviour you really ought to be pursuing. I think this stems from the idea that we need systemic change in the world, and therefore realistically can’t recycle our way to that future.

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August 1, 2020

Ripple Energy

A very interesting company I heard about this week was a new cooperative in the UK called Ripple Energy. It’s working on the first consumer owned windfarm. The idea is that you can buy shares in the company, and when the farm is built, you will get some of the energy they generate deducted as cost from your electricity bill for the next 25 years. It’s deemed as an alternative to roof top solar.

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June 4, 2020

The History Of Electric Cars - 21st Century

This is the final piece of my three-parter on the history of electric cars. Here, we move up to the present day and the exciting developments that have happened in the last few years, where EVs are close to becoming mainstream. 2003-04 G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins the suit. G.M. announces that it will not renew leases on its EV1 cars and that it plans to reclaim the cars by the end of 2004.

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June 2, 2020

The History of Electric Cars - 20th Century

A continuation of my previous article on EVs during the 19th Century, I now cover some significant events in the 20th century around electric cars. Arguably, during this time period, EVs had two chances to become mainstream, but both were impacted by events in the energy industry. 1902 If there is one key event that killed the EV’s chances in the 20th Century - this is it. The hugely successful Model-T Ford began mass production.

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May 30, 2020

The History of Electric Vehicles - 19th Century

This is the first part of a three-parter on the history of EVs across the last 200 years or so. It comes from a Lunch & Learn presentation I did at work recently. I wanted to make a bit more visually pleasing, and break down the content into smaller sections. Here’s the first part - the dawn of electric motors, batteries, and the fledging automotive industry in the 19th Century.

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